House Majority Leader Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, right, kisses Toni Walker D-New Haven as Peggy Sayers, D-Windsor, left, looks on at the close of the legislative session at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., early Thursday, June 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

House Majority Leader Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, right, kisses Toni Walker D-New Haven as Peggy Sayers, D-Windsor, left, looks on at the close of the legislative session at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., early

"I want to put a strong push, and it's not in my district, but it's the only zoo we have in the state of Connecticut," Walker said. "We look at things that our families in Connecticut can go to. We've got treasures."

Walker said the zoo's public outreach more than justifies the $360,000 in state funding budgeted this year and in Malloy's proposal for the next fiscal year starting July 1.

"To see a child for the first time see a bear or a lion, there's something about it," Walker said. "These are the things I want them to relate to. Beardsley Zoo is a wonderful treasure that we need to embrace a lot better than what we do. We have neglected that tremendously."

Dancho, in a phone interview from the zoo, said Wednesday that the zoo depends on state support to keep running and expanding.

Several times per legislative session, Dancho and zoo employees bring small animals to the Capitol complex to promote the zoo, which is run by the Connecticut Zoological Society.

The latest will be a $150,000 exhibit for an Amur leopard named Sophia, an endangered species of cat that can weigh 75 pounds. The leopard has been at the zoo for about three weeks.

"There are about 25 in the wild and people feel they won't survive," Dancho said of the hand-raised female, which they hope to make pregnant through artificial insemination.

The new Amur leopard habitat will occupy the former Andean bear exhibit. The endangered bear has moved to a zoo in West Virginia, joining a female, but Dancho hopes to someday have enough funding to bring him back.

The zoo, which gets about 250,000 visitors a year, will be the new home to as many as five Mexican wolves coming from California this spring.

Walker, speaking with the economic development officials, said that when Dancho brings an animal to visit lawmakers, it gives her a special thrill.

"I get a charge out of seeing the snake or the owl or something come up here and he poops on my shoulder and I feel blessed," Walker said.